What is sequential fission?

Answer 1

We need to back up a bit and lay a foundation for what sequential fission is. It begins in the nuclear physics lab (an accelerator facility) where we investigate nuclear events using heavy nuclei. We'll start there, and it'll be easy to understand what's up. Ready? Let's jump. We're big on investigating the mysteries of subatomic physics by smashing stuff. (Plus, it's fun!) One of our ideas was to take a fat atom like, say, lead, and make a bullet out of it. We'd strip off all its electrons (with really high voltage). Then we'd take the big positively charged nucleus and accelerate it in a big electromagnetic pump (an accelerator). With our bullet sufficiently speeded up, we'd slam it into something like, say, a uranium nucleus. In the collision event, a big "something" would form when the "lead was added to the plutonium" in the target area. Things then begin to happen. There are a number of events that could result when we try to glue two big, fat anomic nuclei together. First, they don't like to be stuck to gether. They decay. And fission is common. But what frequently happens is that our "resultant nucleus" fissions, then one or both of the fission fragments fission, and then one or more of those fragments fission. It's a sequence of fissions, and what actually happens will depend on what was combined and at what energies (as well as a good bit of probability as to what was actually created). Make sense? It's not that hard. It might help to build a "family tree" of events. And physicists do. Let's take the analogy. Grandparents don't have grandkids. They have kids who have kids which become the grandkids. It's sequential, and each "step" has a precursor event. Does that lock it in for you? It's just as simple as it seems. Really!

Answer 2

Sequential fission is a process where the parent organism produces offspring in a sequential manner, where each offspring is created individually at different times. This is in contrast to simultaneous fission, where multiple offspring are produced at once. Sequential fission is common in some organisms like tapeworms and some bacteria.